Delirious

by Daniel Palmer

  As the minutes passed, Charlie grew more anxious. He wanted this part to end quickly so he could mentally ready himself for the next phase of his treatment to begin in earnest. He was closely guarded by two Arlington police officers. His physician escort from Walderman waited in the van that had brought him first to the Arlington police station. Once there, he had been transferred by police cruiser to the crime scene.

  His police escorts were as forthcoming with emotion as the Foot Guards of Buckingham Palace and kept a watchful eye over him. Randal had warned Charlie about what to expect, but the reality was far more dramatic than he had imagined. The sheer size of the police force needed to recover a dead body was puzzling. Since it was a recovery mission and not a criminal search, Randal had explained that a warrant wouldn’t even be necessary. But Charlie had assumed fewer officers would be involved.

  Charlie watched Randal Egan approach from the shadows, with his hands stuffed into his overcoat pockets and his face briefly illuminated by the revolving strobes. Randal flashed the officers guarding Charlie his badge. They moved backward, but with subtle, incomprehensible grunts of disrespect.

  “This is all pretty fucked up,” Randal said, placing a strong hand on Charlie’s shoulder.

  “I told you in the bar strange things were happening to me,” Charlie said.

  “Yeah, but this is a bit more than strange. Now do you want to tell me what’s really going on?”

  “Am I under arrest?” Charlie asked.

  “No.”

  “Do I have to tell you anything more than I already have?”

  “As a friend, yes. As a member of the law enforcement community, you know this isn’t my jurisdiction, Giles. Unless it’s a federal case. Any reason this would be federal?”

  “I’m long past reason,” Charlie said.

  The two men exchanged an awkward stare, until Charlie broke the tension with a laugh and a smile. It was the first time he had smiled in what felt like years. Randal replied with a laugh of his own, then put his arm around Charlie’s shoulders.

  “It’s going to be okay, buddy,” Randal said. “We’ll figure this out together.”

  Charlie felt his friend’s concern and had never appreciated the man more. But his brief respite from the intensity of the moment ended when a dark blue Crown Victoria, flashing a single red strobe, turned the corner and sped toward them.

  “Who’s that?” Charlie whispered to Randal.

  “That, my friend, is the Arlington chief of police.”

  The man who emerged from the police car was strikingly tall. His cheeks were sunken and hollow, as if work, not food, had been his mainstay for years. Every feature on the man was narrow and angular. From the long, thin nose to his fingers drumming restlessly on his legs, to a neck so wiry that his Adam’s apple stuck out like a Ping-Pong ball in his throat. There was nothing about the man that suggested comfort. He moved with calm assuredness and projected an aura of complete control. He took no time to adjust to the chaos into which he had entered. His eyes were keen, like those of a hunter, narrowed and searching. He first saw Randal and then set his gaze on Charlie. He held eye contact long enough to make Charlie’s pulse quicken. The man seemed capable of sniffing out deception by observation alone. The chief rubbed at the coarse scruffiness of his three-day-old beard and continued his silent stare. Charlie felt certain he had already been judged guilty of something. What that was remained to be seen.

  “Charlie, this is Police Chief Sandy Goodkin. Sandy, good to see you again,” Randal said, extending a hand.

  “Wish I could say the same,” Goodkin said. “And you, I suppose, are Mr. Charlie Giles.”

  “I am.” Charlie lifted his cuffed wrists and smiled awkwardly. Goodkin looked at him as if a handshake would be the last thing he wanted.

  “Lot of fuss you’ve caused,” Goodkin said. He pulled out a pack of what Charlie thought were Camel cigarettes. Charlie watched as Good-kin put one of the smokes in his mouth, then shoved the whole thing in and began to chew. “I’m quitting,” Goodkin explained. “Vera said it was time. These candy cigarettes are a lot cheaper than Nico-rette and just as effective, if you ask me. You smoke, Mr. Giles?”

  “No,” Charlie said. “I don’t smoke.”

  “Well, that’s at least one thing you’ve got going for you. So what’s the deal with this circus you’ve created? Why don’t you tell me what’s going on in your own words?”

  “I’m not here to tell you anything,” Charlie said. “I’m here to show you something.”

  “And why is it you want to be on the scene to play show not tell?”

  “It’s personal. I need to relive that day. In exchange, I’ll give you the body.”

  “Tell me why you want to relive it,” Goodkin said.

  “I don’t remember anything but seeing a dead body. I want to be back here and face this thing head-on. I want to know if seeing the body again triggers some repressed memory,” Charlie explained.

  Goodkin’s skeptical look prompted Randal to intervene. “Charlie’s been going through a lot lately. This was just one of several strange incidents that have been happening to him over the past few weeks for which he has no explanation or memory.”

  Goodkin nodded his head in a way that suggested he didn’t much care but understood. “So did you murder this …” Goodkin reached behind him and pulled out a metal folder from the front seat. He then shuffled through the case file papers, scanning them for a name. “Mr. Rudy Gomes?”

  Charlie looked Goodkin in the eye but said nothing.

  “Well then,” Goodkin said to Randal, “this sure is a weird one. No missing persons report filed, either. And by the way, consider any favors that you’ve earned over the years paid in full.”

  “Understood,” Randal said.

  “Since Chatty here seems all out of chat,” Goodkin said, “why don’t we go inside and have us a look? Shall we?”

  Goodkin motioned toward Gomes’s apartment, and the three marched side by side across the street. The wind flapped Goodkin’s and Egan’s overcoats open like capes; the lights from the yellow streetlamps above cast their shadows into superhero-like figures on the march. Police officers milling about parted as they approached. The two Arlington policemen assigned to guard duty kept pace only a few feet behind.

  Charlie had been on this street at night only once before, and that was an experience he’d rather soon forget. The jarring sound of shattering glass from Gomes kicking out the window of his BMW was still fresh in his memory.

  Goodkin turned to Charlie as they neared the steps to the apartment. “Okay, Mr. Mystery Man,” Goodkin said mockingly. “Why don’t you talk and I record?” Goodkin held in his hand a small Panasonic digital recorder, a type Charlie had frequently used for recording business meetings.

  Charlie was caught off guard at the thought of being recorded. Instinctively he knew any lawyer worth their price would strongly disapprove. But this wasn’t about common sense. Charlie shrugged off his apprehension with a slight nod of his head.

  Whatever they are going to do to me won’t be decided based on a recording, he thought.

  His singular mission was to retrace his steps that day. Perhaps some memory of his committing the crime would come back to him. At least that would bring proof of his guilt and provide some closure to this nightmare. Living with doubt, he now believed, was a far worse fate than confronting the truth.

  “I came back to this house after my brother, Joe, showed me a note,” Charlie began.

  “What note?” Goodkin asked.

  “You didn’t tell me about a note, Charlie,” Randal said.

  “Doesn’t matter now,” Charlie said. “The note Joe showed me said, ‘One down. Three to go.’ It was in my handwriting.”

  “What does that mean?” Goodkin asked.

  “At the time I believed it meant that Rudy Gomes was dead and that the others on this kill list that I found in my brother’s house would soon follow,” Charlie explained.

 
“Kill list?” Randal asked.

  Charlie nodded. “Apparently I wrote a list, which I titled ‘My Kill List.’ On it, I put the names of the people who fired me from Solu-Cent. Rudy was one. My boss, Simon Mackenzie, another. And the CEO himself, Leon Yardley, the third.”

  “Apparently?” Randal asked. “You don’t remember writing that list?”

  “There’s a lot I don’t remember these days, Randal,” Charlie said.

  “But you said there were four names,” Goodkin said. “Who’s the fourth?”

  Charlie shrugged. “I don’t know. The note just said that it’s a surprise.”

  They had stopped at the entrance to the apartment. Goodkin kept his focus on Charlie, looking for signs of deceit.

  “But you wrote the list,” Goodkin said. “So you tell me. Who is the surprise victim?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlie answered. “Like I said, I don’t even remember writing the list.”

  “Where is the list?” Goodkin asked.

  Charlie paused. He stared at the door to the apartment. All he wanted to do was to get inside and end this charade once and for all. If he was a monster, as the evidence seemed to indicate, then the author of the list, let alone its whereabouts, was of little consequence.

  “I don’t know where the list is anymore,” Charlie said. He made no attempt to avoid being recorded. “But it doesn’t matter, does it?” he asked. “I wrote it. It was penned in my hand, and Rudy’s dead. What else is there?”

  “The evidence,” Randal said, almost to himself.

  “Okay then,” Goodkin said. “Let’s go have a look at this body.”

  Goodkin nodded to an officer standing behind him. The officer moved toward the door. Using a set of tools Charlie had never seen before, the entry specialist had the door open in seconds. Goodkin slipped on a set of gloves to protect the crime scene and pushed open the door with his hands.

  “Don’t touch a thing. Got it?” Goodkin said. “Now, talk to me.”

  “I came here in the morning,” Charlie began.

  “Time?”

  “Eleven o’clock. Thereabouts,” Charlie said. “The door was open.”

  “How is it locked now?”

  At this Charlie paused. “I … I don’t know,” he said.

  They entered the hallway. The apartment was dark, until Goodkin turned on a hallway light.

  “What next?”

  “I first looked into the living room,” Charlie said. His mind was racing to retrace his steps from that day.

  “Any sign of struggle?” Goodkin asked. “Did you see anything unusual?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “Then what?” Goodkin prodded.

  “Then I walked down the hall toward the bedroom. The layout was familiar to me. It’s similar to a lot of the homes in Waltham. Old two-story houses. Like the one I grew up in,” Charlie said.

  “And?”

  “And I stopped at the bathroom door. I heard running water. I opened the door to look inside.”

  Randal and Goodkin followed close behind as Charlie made his way down the narrow hallway, stopping in front of the bathroom door, halfway to the bedroom at the other end of the hall.

  “What next?” Goodkin asked, keeping the recorder close to Charlie.

  “I opened the bathroom door. Steam spilled out into the hallway,” Charlie answered, covering his eyes with his hands to better visualize every detail. “I went inside the bathroom. It took a moment for the steam to clear. The shower was running. I pulled back the shower curtain, and that’s when I saw the body.”

  Goodkin pushed open the bathroom door and stepped inside. The room was dark, and Goodkin fumbled a moment for the light switch on the inside wall.

  Entering the bathroom, the first thing Charlie noticed was what wasn’t there. There was no moisture and no smell of decay. He had never turned off the water. It should have been running, same as he had left it.

  The shower curtain was pulled across the tub, but he didn’t remember pulling it closed before he left. Perhaps he had. The uncertainty was more than a little troubling.

  “I don’t smell a dead person,” Goodkin said in a mocking singsong tone. He ran his hands across the tiled wall and held his fingers close to his face to examine them. “You said the shower was running when you left?”

  “It was,” Charlie said.

  “These walls are pretty dry, Giles. Can you explain?”

  “No. I can’t.” Charlie looked at the shower curtain. A sinking, consuming fear began roiling inside him.

  He watched as Goodkin walked over to the tub. Goodkin grabbed hold of the shower curtain and pulled it away with flair. What they saw stunned everyone in the room. Goodkin stared at the tub for several seconds. He rubbed at the stubble of his nascent beard before turning to Charlie.

  “Can you explain this?” he asked.

  Charlie stared at the tub. His mouth was dry, sweat beading on his brow, his heart thumping in his chest.

  “Charlie, what is happening?” Randal asked through clenched teeth.

  “I don’t … I don’t know …,” Charlie said.

  Goodkin dropped down to his knees and put his head in the tub. Charlie could hear him take in a deep breath.

  “Well, he’s tidy. I’ll give him that,” Goodkin said.

  “This makes no sense,” Charlie said. “Rudy was there.”

  “Well, from what I’m seeing,” Goodkin said, “this is a tub. Where is the body?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlie said, with a voice so weak, he might have been talking to himself. “The body was there. His throat was cut open. I saw it with my own eyes.”

  The three stared at the empty tub for what felt like an eternity.

  “No body, Charlie. No crime. Crazy is as crazy does, I guess. Marshall!” Goodkin barked.

  A young deputy emerged from the hallway and faced his boss. He stood at attention, ready to receive his orders.

  “Try to get in touch with the landlord of this place and explain what we’ve done to his home without a warrant,” Goodkin said.

  “And what should I say?” Officer Marshall Winters asked.

  “I don’t know,” Goodkin said. “Some mental patient is having delusions about his tenant. You figure it out.” Goodkin turned to Randal. “Randal, I’m going to do the best I can to forget about this incident. But it won’t be easy.”

  Charlie couldn’t take his eyes off the empty tub. Not a bloodstain was to be found. Goodkin had called for a black light, but Charlie knew it was pointless. The most sensitive light equipment available would show no signs of Rudy Gomes’s death. The tub was empty. There was no body here or anywhere in the apartment.

  As the detectives concluded their search of the bathroom, Charlie’s knees buckled under the weight of the moment. The room spun and darkened. Charlie fell onto the cold tile bathroom floor. For an instant, right before he passed out, Charlie felt enveloped by a force so foreign and mysterious to him that he could only interpret it as madness.

  Chapter 36

  Charlie sat just outside the common area, on a scuffed wooden chair splashed with coffee stains, and waited. It was Sunday morning, and Charlie soon would be legally free to leave Walderman and resume his life. Just thirty-six hours ago Charlie had left Gomes’s place without seeing Gomes’s body. The question on his mind now was if he was really ready to leave.

  Charlie’s chair was opposite the main entrance, giving him an unobstructed view of the front door. He cursed the lack of any clocks on the walls and decided it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes since he’d last asked a nurse the time.

  Where was he? Charlie fretted.

  Each second that passed fueled the anxiety growing within. From his perch upon the chair, the only thing that helped take his mind off his friend’s delay was watching Maliek, the reigning board game champion of Walderman, win game after game of checkers and backgammon. Maliek was young, athletic, and constantly grinning. If only he had his Gibson, Charlie lamented. Th
at would kill the time.

  A few patients tried to talk to him, but Charlie repaid their friendliness with silence. Unless it was Randal, bringing with him news of Rudy Gomes’s whereabouts, nothing else mattered. As a favor, Randal had promised to dig some into the Gomes mystery using whatever resources were available to him from the FBI. Charlie’s only hope now was that Randal would come up with something that might bring credibility to his original story. The other possibility, equally frightening, was the one Chief Sandy Goodkin had already concluded to be true. Charles Giles, software entrepreneur and multimillionaire businessman, was clinically insane.

  The entrance door buzzer sounded and startled Charlie. Given the frequency with which the buzzer went off, he should have grown accustomed to the sound of the security door unlocking. But it was always jarring—a shocking reminder of his current situation.

  Charlie’s hopes dimmed the moment Randal entered the room. The grave expression on Randal’s face said it all. He didn’t bother to greet Charlie with a perfunctory embrace or even a handshake hello. His head shake was almost imperceptible, but it felt like a punch to Charlie’s gut.

  “Where can we go to talk?” he asked.

  Can this get worse? Charlie thought.

  “Follow me,” Charlie said.

  He led Randal through a door next to the nurses’ station and into the large meeting room where days before Charlie had attended his first group therapy session. The chairs were set up in a semicircle for the next session, but that wouldn’t be for hours, usually an hour or two after lunch. Randal sat in one of the chairs, his hands folded in his lap. Charlie was far too nervous to sit and opted instead to pace.

  “Rudy Gomes resigned from SoluCent three days ago,” Randal began.

  “Resigned? What do you mean?” Charlie asked.

  “I mean he quit. He sent a letter of resignation via e-mail. The day you allegedly say you saw him dead.”

  “Don’t be patronizing, Randal. I don’t need that right now. I know what I saw in that apartment. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense.”

  “I agree. Especially since his e-mail came hours after you discovered his body in the bathtub.”